State violence and movement strategy

I30

I think if you've got enough people you can take a stand in any way to prevent stuff. But let's face it, the state has all the firepower, all the guns, and all it takes is an excuse and they'll use it….So when [the state] move[s] in they have every right in their mind to come in and surround and corner people...but if you defend yourself, if you resist that then you're the aggressor.

The absence of movements

I1

It's the absence of social movements in general that I think is the issue. In the past in the [International Socialists], at least in the incarnation that I was a part of...it was a very clear delineation. You don't take a position above a [union] steward position, that's it, and you don't challenge for [union] president because that leads to all kinds of other stuff and you certainly don't take a staff job by any means. I held to that for a long time. The conditions, I think, are different now. We're not seeing the same opportunities and where they exist [there are] bits of bubbling but not a boiling pot by any means. It's the absence of social movements that has folks like me going into full time jobs that we would never have taken in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Equity across time and space

I31

Equity is a really challenging thing, when you're dealing with equity...on a geographic scale. I'm drinking a coffee, obviously someone had to like pick the beans, and it is a fair trade coffee so I have that sense that I've purchased a product and I'm able to see the connection, at least tangentially understand, that there's ways and means to creating more equitable distributions, but again that's...just relying on some of the functions and features of capitalism to solve problems that are fundamentally being precipitated by [it]. And then equity across generations is an even more difficult thing, especially when you're talking about climate change because...the decisions we're making now are going to have an effect on our grandkids.

Moving on

I21

I think that your generation is starting ahead of where my generation started and that brings me some hope. Now I think there are a bunch of things that I think you guys are doing that is totally as stupid as we did but there are things that I think you are thinking about, and concerned about, and critical about, and open about that was not reflected in the left wing movements of the sixties and seventies….there were many things we couldn't have known. But I think this generation of activists has a body of knowledge based on the trajectory of things that have happened in the last thirty, forty years that you are actually more humble about.

Outrage, movements, and institutionalization

I17

Protests, they get a lot of attention, but unless you have millions of people it's not going to amount to anything and one of the things governments have learned is that volunteers wear out eventually. You can't sustain a white-hot movement indefinitely without becoming an institution. So as soon as that happens you've lost the white-hot outrage that got you started….In order to have the kind of impact [you] want, [you] have to become something different then [you]...started out to be.

A world without rape culture

I11

I try and imagine a world without rape culture sometimes and it's pretty exciting.

Accelerating the collapse

I2

I think that the whole concept of shit hitting the fan is a weird way to refer to a collapse that's already in progress and that's depressing. I feel like there's going to be an acceleration that could be really fast.

Whiteness and the limits to movements

I19

[What are the] conversations that need to be had? Well...there's the race conversation. Not that that conversation doesn't happen but I don't think it happens in a way that ever gets anywhere near to addressing the issue. It kind of happens in this...massaging white guilt kind of way - we're talking about it...but it never actually gets addressed at all. I think that's a major issue locally….I think there's the whiteness of our movements and then there's racism in Halifax and where the activist community fits in to addressing that. I think that's a conversation that needs to be had that isn't because I think it very much limits what groups can do and what organizing can accomplish in the city...

Possibilities today

I13

...what is possible today? What would it look like if the people won? On the one hand, I believe that Lenin was right, a revolution can't be sustained without a very highly organized and disciplined central group. This is the big dilemma. On the other hand, a highly trained and disciplined central group tends to want to perpetuate itself and you can't have one and you can't have the other.

Violence and radical social change

I11

I like expressions of violence. Expressions of violence inspire me and feel sincere to me where other expressions of anger don't, they lack something. So I like to see places get windows broken and fires...started but [they’re] mostly...an expression of anger…[they’re] not...the violence that is going to bring down the state.